Further, this higher education of women--and we may be content to accept the adjective without qualification, since it is after all only a comparative, and leaves us free to employ the superlative--may be and often is of very real value in certain cases and because of certain local conditions, such as the great numerical inequality of the sexes in nearly all civilized countries. It is valuable for that proportion of women, whatever it be, who, through some throw of the physiological dice, seem to be without the distinctive factor for psychical womanhood, the existence of which one has tentatively ventured to assume. These individuals, like all others, are entitled to the fullest and freest development of their lives, and it is well that there shall be open to them, as to the brothers they so closely resemble, opportunities for intellectual satisfaction and self-development. Therefore, surely, by far the most satisfactory function of higher education for women is that which it discharges in reference to these women. Their destiny being determined by their nature, and irrevocable by nurture, it is well that, though we cannot regard it as the highest, we should make the utmost of it by means of the appropriate education. Only because sometimes we must put up with second bests can we approve of higher education for women other than those of the anomalous semi-feminine type to which we have referred. At present we must accept it as an unfortunate necessity imposed upon us by economic conditions. So long as society is based economically, or rather uneconomically, upon the disastrous principles which so constantly mean the sacrifice of the future to the present, so long, I suppose, will it be impossible that every fully feminine woman shall find a livelihood without some sacrifice of her womanhood. This is a subject to which we must return in a later chapter. Meanwhile it is referred to only because its consideration shows us some sort of excuse, if not warrant, for the higher education of woman, even though in the process of thus endowing her with economic independence, we disendow her of her distinctive womanhood, or at the very least imperil it; even though, more serious still, we deprive the race of her services as physical and psychical mother.